SPECIAL AND SPOTLESS? OR MAYBE NOT?
LANGUAGE MYTHS IN TOURISM
Višnja KABALIN BORENIĆ
Department of Business Foreign Languages
Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb
6 J. F. Kennedy Square, Zagreb, Croatia
vkborenic@efzg.hr
Sanja MARINOV
Department of Foreign Languages and PE
Faculty of Economics, University of Split
5 Cvite Fiskovića, Split
smarinov@efst.hr
Martina MENCER SALLUZZO
Department of Languages and Culture
Vern – University of Applied Sciences, Zagreb
3 Ban Jelačić Square, Zagreb, Croatia
martina.mencer.salluzzo@vern.hr
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to address two myths related to English as the language of tourism. One
is that undergraduate students of tourism, similar to a significant part of Croatian population,
believe they have a high level of proficiency in English, and two, that they are with their high
level of English, well equipped with the language they need for working in the tourism field. The
language of tourism is unique. Although it may not have a well-defined content and clear
functional boundaries as it is influenced by a wide range of disciplines (Calvi, 2005), it has
specific purposes and should be addressed as such, different from general English. It is
structured, it follows certain grammar rules, has a specialised vocabulary and semantic content,
and it adopts a special register (Dann, 1996). Furthermore, the language of tourism uses a
special register with a corresponding set of genres that are appropriate for particular
communication situations within the industry and with and among both tourists and tourees
(Dann, 2012). Awareness of the existence of the specific language of tourism and its skilful usage
should increase the quality of the tourism product. In order to weigh tourism students’ language
skills against their perceptions, attitudes and expectations a written assignment designed to
demonstrate students’ language competences has been combined with a specially designed
targeted questionnaire. The survey will investigate students' attitudes to and perceptions of the
need for improving and refining their language skills (both English and other languages) as part
of the undergraduate Tourism courses. Tourism sells and delivers dreams. The industry is
characterized by fierce competition, and we believe that a high level of language competence is
required in order to reach the ultimate aims of the language of tourism: to persuade, lure, woo
and seduce millions of human beings and, in so doing, convert them from potential into actual
clients (Dann, 2003:2).
Keywords: language of tourism, ESP, tourism students, language attitudes
JEL code: A22, A23, L83
1. Introduction
At a mythical place, a perfect Destination, tourists would find the dream they came searching for.
They would also find a perfect host – a charming, communicative, hospitable local, willing to
help, ready to serve, eager to communicate. But what happens when the perfect host does not
speak the perfect language, when he derails the impression, spoils a reservation, shakes the image
created by perfect semantics; when language full of mistakes wakes our guests up from the
mythical dream. Should the world “myth” then be linked with the mythical image, or should we
interpret it as a “popular belief” or “false notion.” (http://www.merriam-webster.com). In this
paper the latter will be the case: the myth of Croatia as an anglophone country will be analyzed
from the perspective of the English-for-specific-purpose teachers and students getting ready for
the careers in the tourism field.
In globalised economies English is considered a basic skill (Graddol, 2006). Its dominance as a
lingua franca in business settings is indisputable (Nickerson, 2005; Čepon, 2005; Klein, 2007);
and as many as 79% of Europeans believe English is the most useful language their children
should learn for their future (Eurobarometer, 2012). For decades now Croatian educational
authorities have promoted learning foreign languages from an early age (Mihaljević Djigunović,
in press) and 85-90% of children nowadays learn English from grade one of formal education
(Medved Krajnović & Letica, 2009). Upon passing the state high school leaving exam, typically
after 9 to 12 years of English instruction, Croatian high-school graduates enter higher education
with a lot of self-confidence and a satisfactory command of general English: the levels required
by the national curriculum are reached (A2 by the age of 14, and B1 by the age of 18, according
to CEFR 2001), but students are better in language reception than in language production
(Bagarić 2007; Geld and Stanojević 2007; Josipović Smojver 2007; Medved Krajnović 2007;
Zergollern-Miletić 2007). At that point, reasonably proficient and accustomed to using general
English for private purposes, most Croatian university students embark on English for special
purposes (ESP) courses designed for their professional needs (Kabalin Borenić, 2010a). As
inexperienced ESP learners, freshmen university students are seldom aware of the specific nature
of the ESP, and when it comes to English of Tourism the misunderstandings appear to be even
more widespread.
Two myths regarding English and other foreign languages used in the tourism industry will be
addressed:
1) In Croatia, most young people these days speak good English, and
2) English of Tourism is just general English used to speak about more specific contents that we
are all more or less familiar with because we live in a country with a highly developed tourism
industry. Speaking good (general) English is therefore sufficient for handling most jobs in the
tourism field.
In order to respond to these two myths we have set several more specific goals:
 Present an overview of the most widely accepted theory of the specific sociolinguistic
characteristics of the Language of Tourism.
 Explore the awareness of the difference between general English and English of Tourism
among the students of tourism.
 Analyze the students' motivation for studying English of Tourism as a specific form of
English.
 Investigate students' perceptions about their proficiency in English: general proficiency,
proficiency in each of the four main skills, and proficiency in specific skills studied as
part of the language of Tourism curriculum.
 Compare the students' perceptions with the actual results they achieve. In particular, we
will analyze a written assignment and indicate the most frequent types of errors. The
results should help create the guidelines for approaching this and similar written
assignments in the future.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. English of Tourism
Tourism plays a prominent role in modern society. Millions of people are on the move, choosing,
using and experiencing countless social and natural phenomena. The language preceding these
encounters as well as that deriving from them is necessarily a special kind of language, one
capable of fulfilling the manifold communicative goals and needs of the tourism discourse
community. According to Swales (1990: 24-27), a discourse community follows the recognized
public goals, has a communication mechanism that includes providing information as well as
feedback, uses one or more genres, has a specific vocabulary and a perspective of acquiring new
membership. All of the above holds true for the tourism discourse community that represents
reality using a communicative loop in which verbal representations of the producer respect the
expectations of the receiver. The language of tourism reflects social functions fulfilled by
tourism: the search for authenticity (MacCannel, 1989 as quoted in Dann, 1996: 7-11), the search
for strangehood (Dann, 1996; 12-17), the desire to play (Dann, 1996: 17-23) and the desire to
experience the excitement resulting from conflict (Dann, 1996: 25-26). The language of tourism
is therefore affected by the need to provide/obtain the desired experiences. For example, the
authenticity perspective is reinforced by explicit expressions and the strangeness perspective by
words expressing novelty. The language of tourism has four principal properties: functions,
structure, tense and magic (Dann, 1996). In order to reinforce the claim that the language of
tourism follows a set of special rules we quote a few examples. While the directive function is
often reduced to vague imperatives, and the metalinguistic function is underutilized, the
expressive function of LoT is fulfilled by replacing "I" with "we" and "our" and the use of value
judgments and superlatives. To fulfill its poetic function LoT relies mostly on metaphors and
metonyms. As regards the structure of tourism discourse, it aims to capture attention, maintain
interest, create desire and get action. The temporal focus of tourism is either in the past or in the
future, as this approach allows the tourist to escape from the present. In order to inspire desire the
industry touts the 3Rs (romanticism, regression and rebirth), 3H's (happiness, hedonism and
heliocentrism), 3F's (fun, fantasy and fairy tales), and 3S's (sea, sex and socialisation). On top of
it all, a willing suspension of disbelief on the part of the tourist is crucial in achieving the escape.
All of these social functions are reflected in the language of tourism. Furthermore, as the
language of tourism implies intercultural communication, a tourism professional should also be
aware of the required levels of politeness in intercultural communication and of both universal
and country-specific taboos (Mader and Camerer, 2010). And finally, the complex issue of
politeness is made even more intricate by the postmodern ethos of trialogue between the key
players of tourism: the industry, the tourist and the touree (Dann, 2012), which means that a
tourism professional has to master several different genres. Since the English of tourism should
be used to "persuade, lure, woo and seduce millions of human beings, and, in so doing, convert
them from potential into actual clients" (Dann, 2003:2), the level of language competences can
well make the difference between success and failure of a tourism product.
2. 2. Motivation
Language attitudes and motivation play a vital role in the language learning process (Mihaljević
Djigunović, 1998; Dörnyei, 2005; Gardner, 2010). Motivation determines the amount of energy
an individual is ready to put into his/her language learning. The fact that English has become a
global lingua franca induced increasing numbers of people to ‘study it as an obvious and selfevident component of education’ (Dörnyei, Csizér & Németh, 2006, p. 89). Consequently, many
EFL environments are characterized by the vague, but pressing sense of need to learn English.
There is, however, evidence that such vaguely expressed goals fail to support a serious learning
effort (Yashima, 2000; Lamb, 2004, Kabalin Borenić, 2013).
3. Study Description
3.1. Participants
Altogether 115 first-year students of tourism from the Faculty of Economics, University of Split,
took part in the study. The sample was divided into two groups at random: 65 who took part in
the survey and 51 who responded to an e-mail booking inquiry. This study design was chosen as
we wanted the latter group of participants to be unaware of our research goals. The two groups
were comparable in every way and the background information on participants collected by the
questionnaire can be taken as representative of the whole sample.
More than 80% of the participants were 18- and 19-year olds, and about 85% had had between 9
and 12 years of formal English instruction. The average grade for English at the end of primary
school was excellent for 70% and very good for the further 18% of participants. Interestingly, the
number of excellent grades in highschool decreased by 25% while there was a 20% increase in
very good grades. The average English grades at university level decreased dramatically: only
4.6% of participants had excellent grades, 15.4% had very good grades and there was an equal
percentage of good and sufficient grades (27.7%).
As regards the situation in which the participants use English skills in their private life or for
professional/educational purposes, it was established that the participants used English more
frequently for professional or educational purposes, with between 64% and 69% using English
often or all the time across the four skills. At the same time, between 35% and 45% of
participants used English frequently in private life. The only exception to this rule was listening
in private life with 86% of participants using English often or all the time.
3.2. Instrument
The data were collected using a four-part questionnaire developed by the authors. The first part of
the questionnaire collected the background information (gender, age, year of study, number of
years studying English so far, average grades for English during formal education and frequency
of English usage in private and professional life). The second part investigated the participants'
perception of the differences between GE and LoT (8 Likert statements). Motivation for learning
English was briefly investigated in the third part of the questionnaire. The participants were asked
to choose only one reason for learning GE among five reasons commonly quoted in the literature:
English is a lingua franca (e.g. Lamb, 2004; Yashima, 2000), personal development (e.g.
Mihaljević Djigunović, 1998; Dörnyei, 2005), international communication (e.g. Yashima, 2000),
and two kinds of instrumental motives (employability - instrumental motivation with future
focus, and GE as educational tool - instrumental motivation with present focus; Kabalin Borenić,
2013). Next they evaluated nine Likert statements for the particular motives related to Tourism as
an academic subject and Tourism as industry. In the last part of the questionnaire, the participants
were asked to assess their language competences and problems (ranking lists of general language
skills, specific tourism-related language skills, self-assessing the ability to communicate
efficiently in writing / speaking, determining the biggest source of problems in spoken and
written communication).
3.3. Writing task – response to an e-mail booking inquiry
The participants were asked to reply to an e-mail booking inquiry (a typical task taken from a
business correspondence textbook). They attempted the task before receiving any formal
instruction on business correspondence.
3.4. Methods
The participants completed the questionnaires during regular English for Tourism classes. The
data collected were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Responding (handwritten) to an e-mail booking inquiry was assigned as a writing task in class. All participants'
responses were analysed using content analysis method and AntConc concordancing software.
4. Results analysis
4.1. Perceived differences between GE and EoT
The analysis of the participants' perception of the differences between GE and EoT revealed as
many as 67.7% of students agree that there is a difference, but there is a lot of disagreement
regarding its source: approximately equal numbers agree (35.3%), disagree (35.4%) or stay
neutral (29.2%) regarding the claim that the difference between GE and LoT derives from the
specific content of tourism. In keeping with the popular perceptions of LSP, as many as 77% of
the participants agree that EoT is just GE with specific tourism vocabulary added. Furthermore,
87.5% students believe it is necessary to have a good background in GE before advancing to
EoT. Almost half of the students (45.3%) think that studying EoT is more challenging than
studying GE, many remain neutral (35.9%) and 18.8% do not see it as a challenge. This result is
not contrary to the finding that a good background in GE is a valuable prerequisite (86.2% agree).
It may indicate that certain students feel they have the necessary background and are therefore
able to respond adequately to the challenge of EoT. Finally, as many as 70.7% of students believe
that communicating with tourists and colleagues in the tourism industry requires special
communication skills, admitting thus, be it indirectly, there is a difference between EoT and GE.
The above results, obtained by simple descriptive analysis, reveal a certain confusion. Even
though a significant majority claims that there is a difference between GE and EoT, they cannot
determine the nature of the difference and a surprisingly large percentage do not realize that EoT
has quite specific goals. The participants, furthermore, seem to be uncertain regarding the
important features of EoT: even though 77% agree that lexis only makes EoT what it is, 70.7%
believe they will need special English communication skills as tourism professionals. In order to
probe these controversies, we looked at the interrelation between the claim that special
communicative skills are required and the claim that there is a difference between GE and EoT.
The results show that 29 students who see the difference also believe that special skills are
needed for communication in tourism. There are, however, 12 students who are neutral about the
difference but still agree that special skills are needed. Finally, there are 10 students who are
neutral about whether we need special skills for communication in tourism but still see the
difference between GE and EoT.
4.2. Student motivation for learning EoT
Confronted with the task of picking only the most important motive from a list of five typical
motives for learning GE, more than half of students (55.4%) chose the explanation that English
has become a lingua franca of modern age. The next most popular reason (18.5%) for learning
GE is that it gives advantage in the labor market. Only 10.8% study it because it broadens the
mind and opens up new horizons, and 4.6% learn it to communicate with foreigners. Sadly, only
1.5% of our participants (first year undergraduate students) learn it primarily because it is
essential for their studies.
Although the choice of studying English as a lingua franca sounds a reasonable one, a cause for
worry stems from the findings of a recent research study into the motivation of Croatian business
students to learn English (Kabalin Borenić, 2013). Instrumental motivation with present focus
(English is essential for one's current studies) correlated most strongly with effort invested into
learning English. At the same time, the vague claim that English should be learnt because it is a
lingua franca had no correlation with the learning effort. Clearly, the correlation results for
learning effort and affective factors obtained by Kabalin Borenić make us wish that our
participants' ranking list of motives were turned up-side down.
The results obtained in the present study are also slightly discouraging for the teachers of EoT
who expect the students at this stage of their education to be interested in increasing their
employability by developing skills related to their career prospects. We also hope that, as the
students progress through their professional courses at the Faculty, more than one student (1.5%)
will find English essential for their studies and start reading professional literature and academic
articles in English.
The curious fact that students do not consider employability issues could be the reflection of the
current situation on the labor market where students do not see many realistic opportunities of
finding employment. When employability is mentioned directly, however, 95.3% do believe
studying EoT can increase their employment competitiveness. This result is not at all in line with
the fact that only 33.9% of participants think that studying EoT is more useful for them than
studying GE, whereas as many as 35.4% are neutral on this point. The contradiction of this pair
of answers is best seen in Table 1 which presents the results of interrelatedness between the two
questions. The contradiction is concentrated on the two highest scores in the table. Namely, there
are 18 (1 + 12 + 5) students who do not think studying EoT is more useful than GE but they do
think studying EoT can help them improve their employment competitiveness. Also, there are 22
(14 + 8) students who do not know if it is more useful for them to study EoT, but they still think
it can help them increase their employment competitiveness.
Table 1: Interrelatedness between the to variables: I believe studying EoT can help me improve
my employment competitiveness / For me it is more useful to study EoT than GE
For me it is more useful
to study English of
Tourism than General
English.
strongly disagree
disagree
neutral
agree
strongly agree
Total
I believe studying English of Tourism can help me
improve my employment competitiveness.
strongly
neutral
agree
strongly agree
disagree
0
0
1
0
Total
0
1
0
0
1
19
23
18
4
65
2
0
0
0
2
12
14
11
2
40
5
8
7
2
22
1
Source: own research
Taking into consideration all students’ responses in this part of the questionnaire, we have to
conclude that students persistently favor GE over EoT, even to the point that they think GE,
rather than EoT, is more useful for them / can help them improve their position in the tourism
labor market. A weak interest in LSP has been recorded in other Croatian studies as well
(Mihaljević Djigunović, 1998; Mihaljević Djigunović, 2007; Kabalin Borenić, 2010b).
Finally, this particular sample of students is not very motivated by discussing tourism related
topics. Almost half of the students gave a neutral answer (49.2%) and 11 students (16.9%) are not
motivated at all. These results come as a great surprise but are related to and supported by other
results from this study. The participants’ lack of interest is in contrast to the teachers’ effort to
motivate students by linguistic activities that are related to their actual needs (Tribble, 1997) and
to help them understand the actual relationship between the subject of their studies and the
language use (Donna, 2000).
Even though EoT is not very motivationally effective, the participants seem to appreciate some of
the content taught in EoT courses. Namely, the students think that the course has helped them
acquire tourism related contents of direct relevance to their study program (60%) as well as to
their future employment possibilities (73.9%). The slight advantage of the latter could be due to
the fact the course itself emphasizes more professional and less academic contents, but also the
fact the students are still in the first year and other modules they are taking are still focused on
acquiring some general knowledge of economics rather than on specific tourism contents.
4.3. Self-assessed language competences and problems
The third specific issue we are investigating in this study is students' perception of their
proficiency in English. When assessing their own general proficiency in English the students are
rather confident about their knowledge. More than half (52.4%) think they are sufficiently
proficient and only 4.6% (three students) do not think so. All the rest (43.1%) are neutral.
Overconfidence about their language skills is a commonplace among the Croatian learners of
English and probably presents one of the main obstacles in acquiring knowledge and language
skills (Kabalin Borenić, 2013). It may have resulted from a long record of formal language
learning and from the fact they can manage with their English in common everyday situations. To
support this view we can quote a comparative study of Croatian and Hungarian learners of
English at age 14: Croats performed significantly better in communicative tests, with significant
differences in overall scores and listening and reading comprehension (Mihaljević Djigunović et
al., 2008). Moreover, overconfidence may have resulted from high exposure to spoken English
(films, music). Research on such exposure has shown evidence of its effect on incidental learning
of English (Mihaljević Djigunović and Geld 2002/2003).
The question is: Can this be enough for a tourism professional with an academic degree?
Table 2 shows how students assess themselves when the four specific language skills are
considered separately. On a scale from 1 to 4, number 1 stands for the best developed skill and 4
for the worst. Therefore, the lower the mean the better the skill. Accordingly, students see
speaking as their main strength, followed closely by reading and listening. Writing is positioned
far behind listening, and we can say it is seen as the major weakness.
Table 2: Students' perception of their proficiency in the four language skills
Statement
Mean
My proficiency in speaking compared to the other three skills (on the scale 1- 4).
2,1385
My proficiency in writing compared to the other three skills (on the scale 1-4).
3,2154
My proficiency in listening compared to the other three skills (on the scale 1-4).
2,4154
My proficiency in reading compared to the other three skills (on the scale 1-4).
2,2308
Source: own research
As language instructors with a lot of classroom experience we do not share this perception of
skills distribution (Kabalin Borenić, 2010a). Namely, we believe that ranking speaking so high is
the students' overstatement of their speaking abilities. It is not likely productive skills (speaking
and writing) will be better developed than their receptive skills (reading and listening). The
overstatement may result from a lot of exposure to spoken English which deceives students into
believing that if they understand a language well they can also speak it well. This assumption has
been confirmed during recent focus group interviews with business students (Kabalin Borenić,
2013).
Another reason may be that writing is practiced less in the formal language education. It takes
time for the students to write the text and teachers to assess the written work, so it is often
avoided. Speaking is also seen as more useful. 76.6% of students enrolled into English for
Specific Purposes course at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciencies are most interested in
spoken communication on current issues of relevance to younger people (Jelovčić, 2008). These
results only confirm the fear that students prefer conversational classes because they feel they do
not need to be very precise in their language choices and they will still be understood. They also
think they do not have to fit into a strict form but their speech can be loose. However, if we
consider the spoken forms such as presentations, meetings, negotiations, telephone bookings, or
responding to face-to-face complaints it becomes quite obvious that speaking is also rule driven
and these rules have to be learnt and followed.
The answers students provided for two of the questionnaire items concerning the difficulties they
encounter in speaking or writing only support the theory that speaking and writing are not two
such different skills and it takes time and practice to master them both. As Table 3 shows the
students were asked to identify which of the four difficulties present a bigger obstacle in speaking
and writing respectively. It is evident that the problems are not significantly different. Although it
is also true all of these problems are present in all student speaking and writing, for the sake of
comparison we wanted the students to choose only the one that presents the greatest challenge.
Table 3: Comparison between the main problems students encounter in speaking and writing.
Problem
Speaking
Writing
I lack ideas/content
10.8 %
15.4 %
I lack vocabulary to express ideas I have
16.9 %
15.4 %
I can get my ideas across but not very clearly
27.7 %
27.7 %
I have the vocabulary but I lack structures
44.6 %
41.5 %
Source: own research
Finally, it is also worth noting which of the nine specific skills studied as part of the English of
Tourism course the students see as more important, and at which they consider themselves to be
better. For easier comparison and clarity the results are presented in Table 4 and the means are
given as a score. Number one was assigned for the most important or the best at and number nine
for the least important or the worst at. Therefore, the lower the mean the more important the skill
(in case of the first column), or the better they are at it (in case of the second column). The
number in the brackets indicates the relative order within the same column.
Table 4: Students' perceived importance of the four skills and own perception of own proficiency.
skill
important
I am good at
making and delivering a presentation
5,2500 (6)
3,6491 (2)
writing a report
4,7656 (5)
5,1053 (5)
taking a telephone booking
3,8906 (1)
3,2456 (1)
replying to a booking via e-mail
4,5938 (4)
3,9649 (3)
reading a tourism related article in a newspaper or
a specialised magazine / journal
6,3906 (9)
4,7018 (4)
reading a contract in order to understand the
agreed terms
4,4688 (3)
6,0000 (7)
negotiating a contract on behalf of a tour operator
4,2344 (2)
6,3158 (8)
writing a text for a brochure
5,4063 (7)
5,6842 (6)
delivering a high quality tour guide's commentary
5,9375 (8)
6,4211(9)
Source: own research
Although the whole of Table 4 is interesting and each item deserves a close analysis we will point
out only several figures of direct relevance for our study. The first thing that catches the eye is the
first line where delivering a presentation is not considered very important - but the students do
feel they are good at it. This information asks for further analysis because all Business English
and English of Tourism language instructors would probably disagree with it. This is, however, in
line with the students' perception of their proficiency in speaking in general.
Another interesting point to make is the order of the first three skills the students feel they are
good at: telephone bookings, presentations, and replying to a booking via e-mail. It is exactly
these three skills that students have encountered in this course so far. Again, the confidence in
choosing these as the first three might have been encouraged by a feeling of familiarity.
Finally, we would particularly like to emphasize the skill of responding to bookings via e-mail,
since it was the object of our final analysis. According to our students this is the fourth skill in
order of importance and the third most developed.
We will analyze this rather short piece of writing in order to check whether the students were
realistic in their assessment and to indicate the major problems as a guideline for tackling this
writing assignment with further generations of students of tourism.
4. 4. Written assignment analysis
In the above-mentioned survey the students indicated writing as the most difficult language skill
to become proficient at - the results show it is ranked far behind the other three major language
skills. We have, however, also shown that the problems students encounter in both productive
skills (speaking and writing) are similar and the perceived difference between the two is not as
big as it may seem.
In the 51 written assignments we have found many errors, all related to the four main problems
indicated in the survey questionnaire: the lack of content, the lack of vocabulary, the lack of
correct structures to incorporate the vocabulary in, and finally the feeling that the message has
been conveyed but not very clearly.
In order to both present the extent of the problem and to inform future teaching practice we have
broken down the errors into the three main categories which are then further divided into
subcategories. There is, of course, some overlapping, which is to say that some errors can fall
under more than one category. It is, however, not our aim to draw a detailed map of errors but to
either confirm or reject the students’ rather high perception of general proficiency in English and
to either confirm or reject their rather poor perception of their writing skills. As shown in Figure
1 there are three main categories: structure, language, and style.
inappropriately
organised content
no introductory
information
no closing
grammar
lexical grammar
vocabulary
syntax
Style
lack of paragraphs
Language
Structure
Figure 1: Categories of errors in students' written assignments
formal vs. informal
written vs. spoken
inappropriate
content
confusing content
incorrect salutation
lack of relevant
information
incorrect closing
politeness
As the main structural flaws we have noticed almost a complete lack of paragraphing (in 30
assignments) or inappropriately organized content (in 3 assignments). Twelve assignments lack
introductory information, while nine of them lack a closing. We have also listed incorrect
salutations and closings under this category although they could be also errors of lexical
grammar, e.g. knowing what “dear” is followed by at the beginning of a formal letter or knowing
what “looking forward” is followed by at the end of a letter. The latter could be considered
syntactical, as well as a lexical grammatical error. We’ve selected several lines from the corpus
of students’ assignments to illustrate the misusage of “dear” (Dear John Bean we accepted ...;
Dear John, I'm happy …; Dear Sir Bean, we are …; Dear Sir John, ...) and “look/ing forward”
(we look forward to see you...; we are looking forward seeing you...; hotel is looking forward to
meet you).
In the language category we have noticed a series of grammatical errors mainly regarding the
wrong singular-plural agreement (in 8 assignments; e.g. all of your question…; room for two
person…), wrong article (repeatedly in 25 assignments), wrong choice of tense (e.g. we will be
having a few options for you), misuse of passive (e.g. I have been received your request…; how I
been read), wrong verb form (e.g I sayed…; our hotel don’t have), wrong indirect questions (you
can choose do you want a room with).
An area more extensive and more complex, however, is that of lexical grammar. Many errors that
would traditionally be classified as grammar are now seen as lexical grammar for the longer
stretches of meaningful language items they form with other lexical elements. A typical
functional word such as a preposition will depend on the word it is used with and may present a
frequent source of confusion and errors. E.g. prepositions have been misused 11 out of 17 times
after the noun “view,” a noun frequently occurring in LoT. Other errors of this type may include
such lexical items that require to be followed by a definite verb form or type of sentence. E.g. I
like you to inform about … is wrong because the verb like has its own rules about larger lexical
structures into which it can fit. The lack of knowledge of how words combine to produce a
desired meaning is what we refer to in the questionnaire item “I have the vocabulary but I lack
structures.” 41.5% of students have identified this as an obstacle in their written production
whereas a much lesser percentage (15.4%) think they lack the vocabulary itself.
Our analysis has confirmed these results. Vocabulary problems have been noticed on two levels:
semi-technical and general vocabulary while technical vocabulary was not to be expected in a
short communication exchange such as a reply to an e-mail booking. Semi-technical vocabulary,
which is used in general language but has a higher frequency of occurrence in specific
descriptions and discussions (Dudley-Evans and St John, 1998:83) has been erroneously used in
the following examples: all-inclusive room, full-pansion, aviable. Most errors, however, are
made in the use of general vocabulary. The most evident is the wrong use of collocations caused
in particular by mother tongue interference (e.g. we accepted your request; if you have additional
questions; price is accessible; normal room you are interesting for our hotel).
Next, a number of typical syntactic problems have been identified as well. Again, as it was the
case with lexis and grammar it is very difficult to draw clear boundaries between syntactic errors
and lexical grammar ones. If a verb is followed by a certain structure it is equally lexical
grammar and syntax because it is that particular verb that will decide the final order of elements
in the sentence. Another typical syntactic error is wrong word order such as: in price is included;
there are available two types of rooms.
Finally, the vast majority of the students used a register which is not appropriate when
responding to a booking enquiry via e-mail. Such professional encounters require that
conventional rules of politeness be observed. As part of the first encounter, an impolite or
inappropriate response to a booking inquiry will likely put off a potential client. Even more, the
higher the level of English the more serious politeness breaches appear (Camerer, 2012). Our
linguistically competent but sociolinguistically immature students could have therefore
committed many serious blunders by using informal or spoken style (e.g. You won't regret it!); as
a result of alluding to taboo topics (e.g. I recommend a room for married couples with a jacuzzi
and a big bed.), as they overwhelmed the guest with unnecessary or confusing information, or as
they addressed the guest with arrogance (e.g. if you need more information, check our website!).
It is therefore of paramount importance that future professionals fully understand the
sociolinguistic requirements of their job, that they are aware of taboo topics and can express the
correct level of politeness.
5. Conclusion
In this paper we set out by proposing two myths regarding foreign languages as related to the
tourism industry:
1) Croatian students are highly proficient speakers of English, and
2) Sufficient knowledge of general English is enough for working in the field of tourism.
In response to the first myth the study has shown the following:
 Overall, first year students consider themselves sufficiently proficient in English.
 Even in a short professional piece of writing students show having problems at different
linguistic and non-linguistic levels that we have identified, classified, and exemplified in
the study.
 Students perceive speaking as their biggest strength and writing as their biggest weakness,
the latter being in accordance with language professionals'/lecturers' view but the former
not.
 The problems identified are only partially related to the specificities of EoT. They are
more related to the general English language issues, thus the myth of having a student
population of highly proficient speakers of English can be rejected.
In response to the second myth and a series of specific goals that resulted from it we have shown
that:
 Language of tourism is specific and should therefore be treated distinctively in language
instruction at the institutions of higher education.
 Students are aware of the difference between GE and EoT only to an extent.
 Professional content does not contribute to the increase in tourism students' motivation to
learn EoT.
 Although students see possible benefits of having EoT skills for increasing their
employment competitiveness, they are still primarily interested in learning English as a
lingua franca.
There is a common agreement among BE teachers and business executives that excellent
communication skills are requisites students need when they enter the business world and when
they become members of the “discourse community” (Widdowson, H.G.,1998). The same can be
said of EoT with an additional emphasis on the subtleties of its sociolinguistic features.
Thus, it follows:
EoT teachers and courses should be committed to raising students’ awareness of particular skills
typical of the specialized language of tourism. Despite a rather high level of GE and the linguistic
confidence students may have, those extra skills need to be added to the range of their language
competencies. Sociolinguistic competence should be strongly emphasized.
EoT courses should address the language related both to professional and academic skills in order
to meet (1) the present need of the students to consult academic sources and produce academic
texts in English, and (2) the future need to competently use English in their prospective tourism
careers. Let future tourism professionals not forget that the first step toward their professional
success will hinge on their ability to use the (English) language to lure, seduce, bring and conquer
the evergrowing number of English speaking tourists.
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